Here’s something you probably didn’t learn in your American History class: Turns out one of our Founding Fathers was kind of into our Founding Mothers.

When Benjamin Franklin wasn’t pushing up his bifocals to go fly a kite in a rain storm, he was doling out love advice. In 1745, our nation’s beloved first Postmaster General wrote a letter to a younger friend advising the man “on the choice of a mistress.” In the eye-opening letter —which was not mailed but apparently simply shared for laughs in Ye Olde Locker Room — Franklin suggests the young man marry an older woman because they are both “experienced” and “grateful.”

Franklin went on to defend his thesis statement with cold hard facts, undoubtedly collected through years of field research. Among the many reasons Franklin enumerated as to why the more mature woman is preferable to the more recent additions to the human race: They are more experienced.

While MILFs may be slightly less attractive than some younger models, Franklin believed that they justified their continued existence by being kinder: “There is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman,” he wrote. Apparently there is such a thing as an old man who is not a good man, though. To that point, Franklin also noted that with an older woman, there was none of that pesky guilt for “debauching a Virgin.”

Further down the list, another reason to endure bedding an older women: “Because there is no hazard of Children.” God forbid you have an illegitimate child and they become governor of New Jersey.

Franklin, unlike Joan Jett, worried about his reputation (it is all about the Benjamins, after all!) and he knew that older women wouldn’t gossip around the butter churn about their conquests: “the Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation.” But the real reason to seek out older women, in Franklin’s own words: “They are so grateful!!”

In the end, though, Franklin conceded that it was best to follow your heart, because according to our beloved Founding Father, all women, young or old, look the same, if you cover “all above with a Basket and [regard] only what is below the Girdle.”